Frank Plomp Toronto-based and inventor of the garbage bag

On a pleasant April day at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto, plastic garbage bag and pail in hand, I stumbled upon the grave of a quiet but impactful Canadian inventor—Frank Plomp.

Long before the blue bin and green bin revolution, Frank was solving a practical problem in a new and creative way. In the late 1950s, just as polyethylene was becoming commercially available, this Toronto-based innovator got to work with the durable, flexible material. His creation? The humble garbage bag—or as he first called it, the “Garbag.”

Frank initially marketed his invention to hospitals and businesses, but in 1962, he took a bold step forward: he convinced the town of Waterloo to have its residents give his bags a try for residential waste. It was the beginning of a quiet revolution in how we deal with trash.

A bin bag. 

And in a stroke of marketing brilliance, Frank custom-designed green bags—not just to match the homeowner’s lawn, but to conceal the mess inside. Practical and polite. Could it be more Canadian?

Frank Plomp’s contribution may not be as loudly celebrated as some, but his legacy is everywhere—from curbside collection to the garage under the sink.

In a fitting tribute, Canadian Tire later named its own line of garbage bags “Frank”—a nod to the man whose simple, smart idea helped clean up the way we live.

Francis Gerard Plomp died in Toronto, in 1976. He was 55.

1921-1976